İKMİB Holds Ordinary General Assembly

Due to extraordinary circumstances brought about by the pandemic, the İKMİB General Assembly that could not be held last year took place on 29 June this year as the 2019 and 2020 Ordinary General Assembly, covering two years. At the General Assembly where agenda items were evaluated, decisions were made to set the proportional membership fee rate to be collected by İKMİB at four per ten thousand and to set the annual membership fee at zero TL. It is expected to take effect following approval from TİM and the Ministry. TİM Chairman İsmail Gülle: Speaking at the İKMİB 2019 and 2020 Ordinary General Assembly, recalled that the normalization process would begin as of 1 July, stating that they had actively completed the process so far and had not left exporters' procedures unfinished. Pointing out that exports retained its first place on the agenda and importance for this reason, Gülle said: "We have tried to the best of our ability to ensure that our exporters are not disadvantaged in any matter. We stood by them through all their problems. We made efforts to resolve all kinds of issues in bans and work permits. They deserve credit—both our President and our government stood by producers and exporters during this process. Since June of last year, we have completed a period full of growth and records. This year we are continuing with success. A quarter of world trade is chemicals. We see that our chemistry sector's potential makes a very significant contribution to our exports. This year will be important, an unforgettable year when, God willing, we will exceed 200 billion dollars in exports," he said. Noting that due to the pandemic they were able to hold the 2019 and 2020 ordinary general assemblies combined this year, İKMİB Board Chairman Adil Pelister said: "For more than three years, we have been working to bring our chemistry sector to the position it deserves. We focused on both achieving sectoral growth and increasing our contribution to our country's economy.

Three years ago when we were preparing for İKMİB's electoral General Assembly, we made extraordinary efforts to fulfill the promises we gave. First of all, we kept our word on reducing the minimum export amount on the green passport given to our exporters from 1 million dollars to 500 thousand dollars and extending the passport's period of use from 2 years to 4 years," he said.

Providing information on İKMİB's 2019 and 2020 activities and chemistry sector export figures, Pelister said: "We traveled the world by participating in 15 of the world's most important trade fairs, mostly with national participation. We hosted the world in our country through 23 buying delegation and trade delegation organizations. We successfully represented Turkey by organizing the national participation in the China International Import Fair, one of the world's most important fairs, as İKMİB. In order to develop our competitiveness in international sectoral competition, we processed a total of 180 UR-GE projects and implemented the majority of them. We organized dozens of training programs and workshops. We held our R&D Project Marketplace. We organized Design Competitions. To increase Eximbank's financing support to our exporters, we transferred 3 million TL to Eximbank in 2019 as İKMİB. We carried out a total of 22 separate cooperation projects with our sectoral business organizations. In 2020, despite the pandemic, as the chemistry sector we exported to 231 countries and left no country unreached in terms of exports in the world. Despite physical organizations blocked by the corona outbreak, we were the union that held the first digital award ceremony, the first digital fair and the first digital buying delegation organization. In 2020 we implemented a total of 110 activities. In 2019 and 2020 combined, we distributed over 1,000 green passports. We came together by creating committees with our women and young chemistry entrepreneurs, managers and students. We completed the feasibility and strategic planning processes of our 'Chemistry Technology Center' and reached the final stage. God willing, in the coming period we will hold its opening together," he said. Emphasizing that in 2020 the chemistry sector maintained its permanent second place by sector with export figures of TRY 18.3 billion in total country exports, Pelister said: "We will reach a very good figure this year. I estimate it will be just over 21 billion dollars and very close to 22 billion dollars. For next year, I am confident that this figure will rise even higher and we will achieve great records."